Fear and No-Fly Listing in Canada: The Biopolitics of the “War on Terror”

<jats:p> Canada’s no-fly list is examined here as a biopolitical plot line of the “war on terror”: one that is constructed on techno-scientific language and practices that authorize and legitimize “us” versus “them” discriminatory dichotomies and thinking. Given that the misidentification of “normal” people on no-fly lists is a rampant story in media reporting, this analysis also reveals that the “truth” of the efficient and effective policing of high-risk milieus of circulation, like airports, through discriminatory logics is a precarious one at best. The author argues that the no-fly list plot line of the “war on terror” masks the techno-deterministic and discriminatory thinking behind these post-9/11 security measures—that the right technological arrangement, deployed in the right way, can invariably solve any governmental problem, including terrorism. </jats:p>